Pattern-or-Practice Investigations and Police Reform Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo talks with protesters at the scene of George Floyd's death in May 2020. (Chad Davis, https://flic.kr/p/2j7CLYT; CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) On April 21, the morning after a Minneapolis jury convicted former officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department had opened a civil investigation “to determine whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing.” Garland conceded that Chauvin’s conviction “does not address potentially systemic policing issues in Minneapolis.” But he noted that the Justice Department’s probe—a “pattern-or-practice” investigation—will offer a chance to “look beyond individual incidents to assess systemic failures.” Less than a week later, Garland announced that the Justice Department had also opened a pattern-or-practice investigation into Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government and the Louisville Metro Police Department, whose officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor in March 2020.